


they gave their sorrow a name

by arachnistar



Category: Marvel, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Minor Carol Danvers/Maria Rambeau, character death is for characters that have been dusted, or the beginnings of a friendship, set after the snap
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-21
Updated: 2020-07-21
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:07:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25413661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arachnistar/pseuds/arachnistar
Summary: Carol and Natasha talk about loss and next steps.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6





	they gave their sorrow a name

**Author's Note:**

> Originally this was going to be Steve and Carol talking because I love their friendship in the comics and I’m sad we won’t get that in the MCU (or perhaps grateful that the MCU could not mess with it) BUT then I got to thinking about the five-year gap and the Avengers team of that time and well, this happened instead. This was also originally going to be longer but I wrote this over a year ago and then never came back until now, so it is what it is. 
> 
> Title from the poem _Atlantis – A Lost Sonnet_ by Eavan Boland.

After they kill Thanos and lose the ultimate fight for the universe, Carol checks the database that’s been set up in the interim on Earth. Her fingers only shake a little as she taps their names in.

Maria Rambeau. Monica Rambeau. 

Their pictures pop up.

Underneath, in blocky letters; STATUS: DUSTED.

Everything falls away, the hum of the computers, the bright fluorescent lighting, even their images hovering in the air before her, all of it becomes fuzzy and indistinct, unreal. It can’t be real. It _can’t_. It must be a mistake, they’ve hidden away in a secure bunker, they don’t have access to Internet or cell service to check themselves in so the system assumed they had vanished, they’re stuck somewhere and she needs to get them out, there’s been a malfunction and the code spit out the wrong status –

DUSTED burns its way into her retinas, even as she refreshes the view, again and again to see the same result flash in the air. Her eyes shut tight, a noisy breath in, and out. The world presses in on her, a collapsing star’s worth of emotion, that makes her chest tight.

Gone. They’re really gone.

She visited them in the years since she got her memory back, popping by for a week or two at a time between saving planets and fighting Kree armies, but now she fervently wishes that she had spent more time on Earth. More time with them. She would give anything for that lost time, to spend another minute in Maria’s arms, to listen to Monica talk about dates and astronaut training, to take them flying and hear their laughs. To say ‘I love you’ one more time. 

But now, now she’ll never get to see them again. Or hear them. Or touch them. There’s nothing left here on Earth for her.

Well, maybe Goose. A regular cat wouldn’t still be alive, but a flerken? Why not? Before she leaves, she’ll figure out where Fury was living last and see if the flerken is still hanging around. She isn’t sure if flying with a flerken is a good idea, but it seems better than being alone. 

“Who are they?” 

Carol jerks, energy sparking across her knuckles, and turns. Natasha – Black Widow, no wonder Carol didn’t hear her – is standing several feet behind her.

“Fury ever think about getting you a bell?” The joke feels weak even as it slips out of her mouth but she can’t help herself. She’s not used to being vulnerable in front of strangers and she’s not in the mood for anything original.

“He tried.” Carol waits, expecting a story, expecting _something_ , but Natasha doesn’t say anything more. It’s something she’ll have to get used to. Instead the spy gestures to the holographic images. “Friends?”

“Family.”

Natasha nods, walks closer to the console. Her eyes are sharp, taking in Maria and Monica’s features. Carol wonders what she sees, if she sees their strength and resiliency or if they’re just faces.

“I lost mine too. With the Snap, of course, and… before.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I don’t remember them.”

Carol’s mouth opens. Then shuts. Natasha wouldn’t appreciate questions about her past, that much Carol knows about her. So, she looks at Maria and Monica and nods.

“I forgot about them for a while.” She corrects. “I was _made_ to forget them. But they helped me bring the memories back.”

Natasha nods. She doesn’t say anything, but Carol gets the creeping sensation that she already knew.

“I never found my old family. I still don’t know who they were. But I found a new one.”

The next moment passes in silence, a vigil for all the lives turned to dust and all the shattered lives left behind to deal with the tragedy.

“Thank you for bringing Tony back and coming to help. Even if it didn’t turn out like we wanted.”

Carol looks over at Natasha, surprised. She didn’t take the spy for someone to express gratitude very often. She smiles a little. “I told Fury I’d always come to help. No matter where I was in the universe, I’d always come back.”

“Fury must have trusted you.”

“We are – were friends.”

Natasha looks over at her, brows raised. “Fury doesn’t have many of those.”

“Really? But he’s so good at karaoke.”

Natasha’s eyes widen. “What?”

Carol smiles; it’s her first real smile since everything went down. And so, she tells Natasha about washing dishes at the Rambeau house, Fury singing, the laughter and joy in the room. By the end of it, Carol is grinning at the memory.

A laugh bursts out from Natasha, sudden, eruptive, and then it’s cut off just as quickly. 

They lapse into a guilty sort of quiet. A laugh feels transgressive – after fifty percent of all life got wiped out, it shouldn’t be possible to smile or laugh or enjoy something. Even a story about Nick Fury in his youth.

Carol looks back to Maria and Monica. They wouldn’t blame her for laughing, they’d be happy for it, but it still feels wrong. Laughing in a universe without Maria Rambeau. She can feel Natasha’s eyes on her, calculating.

“What are you going to do next?”

“I’m leaving.”

_There’s nothing left here on Earth for me_ , she almost says but doesn’t.

Natasha looks again at their portraits, hovering over the console, and nods resolutely. “I want to put together a new Avengers team to deal with all the emergencies that the Snap caused. It’d be good to have you.” 

Carol looks over, frozen for a moment. 

“There are other planets that need help.” Carol says, voice measured and careful. The truth is, the thought of staying on Earth when everyone she loved was gone is too much. 

“The Avengers don’t have to be localized to Earth. We can have different sectors and if one of us needs extra help, we call it in. We keep open communication lines and we deal with this. One day at a time. What do you think?”

Carol stares at Natasha’s extended hand and then at Natasha. It’s her turn to assess the other woman. There’s steel in the other woman’s voice. She may have spent her life as an assassin and a spy, sticking to the shadows until she needed to jump out and strike, but it’s clear now what she is and what she can be. A hero. And a leader. It’s been a long time since Carol followed anyone, but she thinks she could get behind Natasha.

And, well, this was Fury’s project. The Avengers Initiative. He made it after he met her and the other Kree, realized not only the danger of the unknown but also the potential for heroes, and then he used her pilot callsign as the team’s name.

She thinks he’d like it if she joined.

“I’m in.”

They shake on it.

**Author's Note:**

> you can find me on [Tumblr](http://proofthatihaveaheart.tumblr.com/).


End file.
